to justify his position. If this were the case, these enforcers may begin to harass the formal businesses.

Mr. HUNGATE. There are two other problems I see from the testimony we have had here. One is that we keep getting the testimonyand I don't know whether that is strictly right-that they are the policeman, prosecutor, and the judge, that all of that is wrapped up in one man; that may be an unfortunate arrangement.

It may be that it would be better off if one man was the policeman and prosecutor, but some other department or some other person made the adjudication as to whether you were wrong or not, not just the guy who filed the charge.

I think that sort of thing would also loosen up our problem where the Department says, "It says 'shall.'"

When you are the whole business, I guess you could say shall. You could come before another agency and say, "Yes, it says shall, but you have to use a little commonsense."

It is more the common way we do things in law, or we think we do, anyway, and in administrative procedure.

A second angle I think of is in line with Mr. Conte's suggestion. If they had employees, some of whom were the education department and had no power at all of enforcement, they could come out to your place and say, "I am conducting an educational lecture. We are going to take the local Rotary Club through your plant and show where you made mistakes. I would cite you if I could, but I am in the other department."

I am trying to look for ways we can accomplish the act without putting people out of business.

Mr. CONTE. People in the Research Division of OSHA could come up with better safety standards, instead of a ridiculous standard like you can't have ice in water. You weren't here yesterday, but we have had actual witnesses who have been fined because we had ice in water. Things like this wouldn't happen if you had a good, beefed up Research Division.

Mr. HUNGATE. You made another point which is commendable as to your conscientious attitude, about no sympathy with the fellow who just thinks he will get by and doesn't try to comply.

But I submit we have this problem with all the regulations and the changes they now tell us we are going to make. Let's take the toilet problem. You are real conscientious and you put in extra toilets and extra sleeping rooms and couches. Then they repeal, as they are going to do with the ice water rule and the coat rack rule. You spend your money and get all of this done but your competition doesn't.

We had a man talking about ladders at 25 different places. He does all of this to comply, reworks the ladders, and then they decide that it doesn't have anything to do with safety and they abolish the rule. You can see where that would be unfortunate as far as competitors.

Mr. ELLIOTT. One of the statements I made was the commonsense enforcement of it. For instance, we have doorways that are 2 inches less than what the standards call for for exits. Do we have to go back and replace every single door 2 inches?

There is a degree of catastrophe involved in getting 30 people out and 3,000 people out.

Mr. HUNGATE. Thank you very much. You have made a good wit

ness.

The committee will have to recess to answer a quorum call which is now in progress.

(There was a brief recess.)

Mr. BERGLAND (presiding). The subcommittee will be in order. Our next witness is Mr. Harry D. Peterson, the director of employee relations with the Minnesota Association of Commerce and Industry, in St. Paul.

TESTIMONY OF HARRY D. PETERSON, DIRECTOR, EMPLOYEE RELA-
TIONS, MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY,
ST. PAUL, MINN.

Mr. BERGLAND. We are delighted to have you. You may proceed.
Mr. PETERSON. Thank you.

In the interest of time and wanting to be sure that my fellow Minnesotans have a chance to make a presentation, I would like to summarize the statement I have, and ask that my full statement be made part of the record.

Mr. BERGLAND. Your statement will appear in the record as prepared, and you may paraphrase.

Mr. PETERSON. My name is Harry D. Peterson. I am director of employee relations for the Minnesota Association of Commerce and Industry, which has its headquarters at 1600 Pioneer Building, St. Paul, Minn.

The association is a voluntary, nonprofit organization with a membership of approximately 1,500 firms, organizations, and individuals conducting business in the State of Minnesota.

The membership embraces employers engaged in all types of business: Manufacturing, retailing, service, logging, mining, professional activities, and many others. Within its membership are 63 local chambers of commerce and numerous trade and professional associations, and through such organizations our reach extends to many thousands of additional employers in our State.

We very much appreciate the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee. I might express to you, Mr. Bergland, our appreciation for your invitation that we partake in these hearings.

I do not come to you with any horror stories about conditions in Minnesota as far as OSHA is concerned, and the comments I make will be somewhat different than those made by some of the previous witnesses.

Our association has been closely tied to the OSHA program since it went into effect more than a year ago. We have presented with the assistance of local chambers of commerce, State safety councils, and other organizations, 19 seminars on the law. More than 2,700 persons attained these seminars, with most of them being owners and managers of small businesses. They were conducted throughout the State of Minnesota. We have found that all employers, large and small, are interested in job safety. They recognize the tremendous cost to workers, their dependents, and employers themselves when there are accidents which take persons away from productive employment.

Of prime concern is the pain and suffering and loss of income to workers and dependents. Employers lose economically when skilled workers are not available to maintain production and also because of high workmen's compensation costs.

Heard at almost every seminar and public appearance in which we participated were comments by employers that they want to do the right thing and provide safe and healthful work conditions, which is the goal of OSHA. Yet, they are overwhelmed by the complexity of the law and regulations.

Repeatedly there were comments on the lack of specific information about OSHA and the lack of technical assistance which they need in order to be in compliance.

Few small employers have the personal expertise in the area of job safety or trained personnel so that they can understand and interpret specific standards applying to their places of work. The technical language in which these standards are written are confusing, of

course.

In passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Congress declared its purpose and policy to seek to provide as far as possible for every working man and woman safe and healthful working conditions by, and I use the word in quotes, "encouraging" employers and employees in their efforts to reduce job accidents.

I think the word "encouraging" is generally considered to mean stimulating or inspiring in order to take certain positive actions.

It would seem that if there were to be true encouragement of employers, there needs to be education of employers as to what they have to do in these areas.

The shortcomings of OSHA to date has been no inspiring of employers through educational purposes. So far this has been confined to threats of citations and penalties.

The law does make reference to programs for training of employers and employees, but none of this seems to have come to the surface so far.

We have only so far heard about the numbers of inspections that have been made, the types of citations issued, and the money penalties generated.

To our knowledge, the only direct effort to provide some education to employers at the beginning of enforcement of the law was the mailing of the booklet describing recordkeeping requirements which I have before me.

This publication was mailed supposedly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to all employers who had tax-reporting numbers with the Federal Government.

I note in here in the covering letter to the booklet signed by Secretary Hodgson one particular sentence, which I quote: "We urge you to review the contents of this booklet that you may know and respond to your obligations under this new act."

The balance of the booklet contains a summary of the law. It is a reprint of the handy reference guide that was put out. It also carries on into the question of the recordkeeping requirements. It does not even contain any information for employers as to how they can secure copies of standards that they have to comply with, and yet they are,

right from the beginning of the enforcement, subject to inspections, citations, and fines for not having their places of employment meet these unknown standards.

Unfortunately, when the OSHA enforcement machinery was set in motion, similar machinery apparently was not set in motion in the U.S. Government Printing Office to produce sufficient copies of the copy of part 2 of the Federal Register of May 29 which contains some near 250 pages of very detailed standards.

This is the bible for enforcement, at least with respect to the meeting of particular standards. Even now, many months after OSHA enforcement has started, there are many employers and organizations that are unable to acquire copies of the Federal Register.

In our own case, we have had orders on file since early March to fill requests from our members, and we have been unable to secure delivery of the necessary publications.

Obviously, there are also many thousands of employers who have not even heard of the law as yet. We found this to be true even after we conducted the many seminars about which I spoke earlier.

Referring to the standards, these consensus standards, and the mandatory Federal standards that are in the booklet, even though an employer may be able to acquire a copy of the booklet, he probably has no personal expertise in industrial safety. He probably has no staffing that will be able to help him interpret.

This leaves him completely adrift as far as knowing what he has to do. He might engage a technical consultant, but this is at no small cost to him.

You will note that many of the standards deal with levels of exposure to irritants: Dust, noise, toxic materials, and sophisticated testing material is needed to measure these exposure levels. Very few small businesses are equipped with the necessary testing equipment or even have ready availability of a technician who knows how to use it.

Yet these same businesses are subject to inspection, possible citation and possible fines if they fail to comply. Up to now the current administration has been directed fully toward enforcement. An OSHA compliance officer has the role of a policeman and he is not allowed to serve as a counselor to the employer whose plant he is inspecting. He is not allowed to advise the employer on how to overcome noncompliance problems in his plant by telling him what changes to make, the type of equipment or other general advice.

However, the agency may then follow with citations and fines, though the employer wants to do his best to provide these safe working conditions.

True, he has the appeal rights to the Review Commission, but the cost and effort to use the appeal process may be much too great.

We think it is extremely unfortunate that OSHA does not have in the law, in its administrative procedures, authority for compliance officers to counsel with employers and point out to them how they can overcome their noncompliance problems.

In Minnesota, inspectors for our labor and industry department have a good record of working with employers in advising them how to overcome some of their operational deficiencies. That has been done with good results, without diminishing the effectiveness of tough en

forcement where there are violations and where penalties and citations are appropriate.

In enforcing the act OSHA can and does issue citations and money penalties on first inspection violations that are noted. It seems incredible and certainly inappropriate that so comprehensive an act and regulations as we have so early in its administration that the first inspection violation should be handled in this fashion.

We think there should be a time for employers to become fully informed on the law and to have available to them the advice and assistance of safety professionals.

We think the appropriate way to encourge employers for voluntary compliance is to make available to them good technical counsel and to judge them for penalty purposes only after they have had the chance to make necessary changes and get their houses in order.

Based on our numerous seminars which involved hundreds of people that I have described, and contacts with many of our members, contacts with other associations, we feel that the thrust of OSHA needs to be changed from one of firm enforcement to one of encouragement of employers through education and technical assistance.

This can be done without weakening efforts to improve workplaces and insure more healthful workplaces for men and women. We might suggest these items for consideration : OSHA should devote a considerable part of its time in the next year to make sure that all employers are aware of their obligations under the act.

Even though a year has gone by since the program went into effect, there are undoubtedly many, many small employers who are unaware that the law applies to them.

We feel that there must be prompt distribution to all affected employers of OSHA publications dealing with administration of the law. It is certainly unfair for an employer to be expected to be in compliance with a particular provision of law or a particular law, as such and standards that apply to it without even having access to those printed materials.

We feel that Federal grants should be made to set up technical assistance programs. Employers must have sources of information and advice on how to comply with OSHA, including the availability of skilled safety personnel to make plant visits on request and point out alterations needed to bring a plant into conformity.

Technical assistance service could be set up within the framework of OSHA or under management of existing State accident prevention agencies.

Another possibility would be in funding private organizations, such as State safety councils, or organizations of safety professionals to make the service available to employers. We certainly recommend that the law be amended so that first inspections by OSHA be treated as advisory and that where nonconformity standards are noted compliance agreements between the parties be worked out with reasonable time limits to abate unsatisfactory conditions.

No citations or fines should be levied on first inspections except for violations that are very serious and represent obvious disregard by the employers of the health and welfare of employees.